1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information providing apparatus for a vehicle.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, of notifying apparatuses provided in vehicles, an apparatus is available that assists the driver with the driving operation by notifying the driver of the vehicle of various pieces of information. For example, an apparatus is available that, when the driver forgot to return the direction indicator lever, alerts him/her to the forgetting of returning the direction indicator lever (for example, see JP-A-2013-86553).
In this case, the notifying apparatus described in JP-A-2013-86553 provides an alert with attention only to what is directly related to the operation of the direction indicator lever itself.
However, the notifying apparatus described in JP-A-2013-86553 cannot present to the driver of the vehicle information on a recommended operation suitable for the situation around the vehicle.
Moreover, an information providing apparatus for a vehicle that provides various pieces of information to a passenger of the vehicle has conventionally been known. While the information providing apparatus for a vehicle provides information by request from a passenger, in recent years, a method has been known where from a viewpoint of convenience, even when there is no request from a passenger, a scene requiring information provision is determined on the apparatus side and information is automatically provided.
For example, JP-A-2009-145270 discloses a navigation apparatus that, when predetermined additional information is displayed on the display screen for navigation, causes a partial display area of the display screen to blink. According to this apparatus, the driver easily notices that the additional information is displayed.
For example, in JP-A-2010-76602, an in-vehicle device control apparatus that controls in-vehicle devices is disclosed. In this apparatus, when a message to ask whether to perform control of an in-vehicle device or not is read out, the passenger's action of vertically shaking his/her head while looking in a predetermined direction is detected as an affirmative reaction or the passenger's action of shaking his/her head from side to side while looking in a predetermined direction, as a negative reaction. When the affirmative reaction is detected, a control signal to perform the control related to the message is sent to the in-vehicle device.
However, even if an information provision scene is determined and the information is automatically provided, there are cases where the passenger side is not ready to receive the information. For this reason, there is a possibility that the information provision is felt to be annoying or felt to be meddling.